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Irving High School Aviation Team Wins State

In its fifth year, the Irving High School Aviation Science Academy prepares students to enter the workforce in the areas of management, flight, aerospace engineering and aviation maintenance. Now, they’re headed to nationals this April in Washington, D.C.

In its fifth year, the Irving High School Aviation Science Academy prepares students to enter the workforce in the areas of management, flight, aerospace engineering and aviation maintenance. Now, they’re headed to nationals this April in Washington, D.C.

The Irving High School Aviation Science Academy is part of Texas' Career and Technical Education (CTE) program. Now in its fifth year, the academy prepares students to enter the workforce upon graduation from high school. While many schools offer similar programs, the scope of Irving's program is unique. Students at the academy study in one of four aviation areas: management, flight, aerospace engineering, or aviation maintenance.
Recently, students in the Irving High School Aviation Academy competed in the Real World Design Challenge, a state and national competition where high school students design and build a UAS to complete a survey and crop spraying mission. The students are presented with 2 existing commercial drones as a benchmark and challenged to make a better solution. Using CAD and flight software, the students were able to model and perform test flights with their design, and correlate flight characteristics they learned in the Redbird LD flight simulator to tweak their prototype. They won the Texas challenge and are headed to Washington D.C. in April to compete at the national level!